by Tim C Taylor
She felt foolish doing so, even treacherous, but Indiya wished the Hummer team Godspeed.
— Chapter 26 —
The screen in Indiya’s quarters came to life, showing two figures in vacuum suits goofing around in front of the camera. Behind them was a starship of a type Xin, Tremayne, and Del-Marie had never seen before.
Indiya froze the recording.
“What you’re seeing is a feed from home-made spybots I made when I was still a junior cryo technician on Beowulf. Being one of her pet projects, the Reserve Captain indulged me with access to equipment and secrets. I had a tiny amount of entangled material, enough to leave a handful of these spybots at the location where the Bonaventure exploded. They were primed to activate if anything of interest occurred in the vicinity and transmit what they found across the FTL-link to Beowulf.”
“When was this recording made?” asked Tremayne.
“About four months after we took control of Beowulf from the Free Corps rebels. Four months after I destroyed Themistocles. We were on our way back to Tranquility. Frankly, I expected you all to die there.”
“Tawfiq suggested these jokers were Amilxi,” said Xin. “Was she correct?”
Indiya sighed. “You do realize Tawfiq is playing mind games – she’s sowing dissent.”
“Of course she frakking is.” Xin gnawed at her lower lip until her anger subsided. “She’ll mix a toxic cocktail of truths, lies, and insinuations. I want to know which is which. Is there a reason to think these people are Amilxi?”
Indiya grimaced. “Perhaps. You knew about many strange features of the Bonaventure. The crew size was too small for a start, and then there was artificial gravity, which still no one has managed to replicate, despite huge efforts.”
“And the crew called themselves Amilx,” added Xin. “Arun McEwan. Indiya. Xin Lee. I don’t know whether that’s a taunt, an invitation, or what it is, but naming yourselves after an acronym of our names sure as hell isn’t a coincidence.”
Indiya glanced at Tremayne. She didn’t need to use her augmentations to interpret the pain in her face. There was no Springer on that list of names, no Tremayne either. That knowledge had poisoned her relationship with Arun.
“There is one thing you do not know,” said Indiya. “I investigated one puzzle in particular – why did the Bonaventure explode? There was no warning, nothing on the sensor recordings to suggest heat build-up, a missile, or the chemical residue from a bomb. One moment it was fine, and the next it had already exploded. When I say ‘moment’, I’m talking around 100 nanoseconds, because I stepped through the Beowulf’s sensor recordings frame by frame. But there was another project the Reserve Captain had tasked me with – a black box data recorder I had been running – which gave a different answer. One that still makes no sense. According to my black box sensors, it looked as if a ship docked with the Bonaventure, rescued the crew we had captured, and took them away to safety.”
“Why did we not see the ship?” asked Del-Marie. Was it stealthed? Perhaps it was the Hardits?
“I’m sure it wasn’t the Hardits.” Indiya pointed out the vessel in the background of the video recording. “It was that ship. That was the rescue ship, and part of the reason we didn’t see it, is because – according to my black box recorder – that ship arrived, took the Amilxi crew on board, and left, all in a single frame of the sensor record. All of that within 100 nanoseconds.”
“But that’s impossible. Your black box must have malfunctioned.”
“My guess at the time – and it’s only a guess – is that my black box caught a glimpse of… of an error in reality as one version of events was removed, and a replacement spliced into its place. You can see why I haven’t brought it up.”
“Forget the ship, and your crazy theories,” insisted Tremayne. “Show me the eyes!”
Indiya returned Tremayne’s stern gaze and was astonished by the shocking violet of this scarred Marine veteran’s eyes.
Indiya looked away and restarted the video. She’d seen the images a thousand times. This time she watched the faces of the others, suddenly struck by how differently they had aged.
The figures in the video would be coming close to the camera now, leaning in and… There! Xin, Del-Marie and Tremayne, all registered the same moment of shock. But Xin’s face quickly moved to suspicion, and Tremayne’s to loss.
Indiya turned back to the screen and saw for herself the figures: a young man and a young woman who had lifted the outer shielding on their helmets, so the camera could see their faces clearly. Unruly brown curls framed freckled faces. The woman had a cute, dimpling smile that looked like it was employed frequently. Arun had said at the time that the girl’s smile was identical to Springer’s. Their foreheads looked like Arun’s, as did their eyes, with one crucial exception: the irises were violet.
“Come, follow us,” said Indiya. “That’s the message they’re repeating.”
“Who are they?” asked Del-Marie. He searched for recognition in Tremayne and Xin’s faces, but soon realized that they did not know any more than him.
“I asked Arun that same question, Ambassador.” Indiya hesitated while the personal memory her mind replayed of her speaking those words to the young Major Arun McEwan. “He said that you, Springer – I’m sorry, I mean Tremayne… He explained the consequence of your wounds taken on Antilles.”
“I was sterile,” Tremayne spat. She glared at Indiya, but quickly switched the focus of her anger toward Xin. The two of them held each other’s gaze in mutual loathing, before Tremayne slid her focus down to Xin’s fertile belly. “I still am.”
Indiya cleared her throat. “I challenged Arun, thinking he had secretly had children with you when very young, Tremayne, but he was adamant that this was impossible. He was very angry, as I recall. So was I. There were many mysteries that remain unexplained about the Bonaventure and this is just one more to the list. Seeing these images was one more painful memory, and so I locked them away, until today.”
“Stop vulleying around the point, Admiral,” said Xin. “Those eyes are unmistakable. In fact, I think that’s the whole idea. Those people wanted you to see their faces and those eyes.”
Tremayne laughed bitterly. “Perhaps the Admiral is blinder than she looks, Xin. Even after all these decades, we Marines all look the same to the ship rats. You see, Admiral, Xin and I both recognized those eyes instantly because we’ve both had a lover with eyes just like that. They might have my color, but those are Arun’s eyes. Would you agree, General?”
“Without a doubt,” said Xin. “I know it makes no sense, but Arun and Tremayne are their parents. Pedro mixed their DNA and produced those embryos that caused so much trouble. If Pedro could do that, someone else could have done so, and earlier.”
“You might not realize this, Admiral,” said Tremayne, “but I was just ten years old when my regimental commander ordered me to befriend Arun. We’ve been manipulated since before we were born. The most logical explanation, therefore, is as Lieutenant-General Lee says, more embryos. I’m disappointed Arun never mentioned them. Did you know about this, General?”
“He kept this from me too.” Xin switched her gaze from Tremayne to Indiya. It was like being caught by a battleship particle beam. “You and General McEwan were both angry, Admiral. That’s what you told us. May I ask why?”
Indiya swallowed and pressed on, braving the hostility of these women. “Arun attempted to forge a romantic liaison with me. He was still a Marine cadet really; still a teenager and with a corresponding set of urges. I told him that I was not able to give him what he wanted, but he seemed to see that as a challenge.”
“He wanted to save you,” whispered Tremayne. “He’s an arrogant twonk with a God complex, but in those days he couldn’t bear to see pain and loneliness in people he cared about. He didn’t see you as a challenge. More a moral obligation.”
“You’re right, I was a moral obligation. An exotic-looking one who took his fancy, but you’re right that he ca
red about me.” Indiya snorted. “You had no need to defend his honor, Tremayne. That’s what I meant. And no, you Marines don’t all look the same. I recognized Arun in those faces instantly and incontrovertibly.”
“But he made progress in his romance, didn’t he?” said Xin, sounding as if she were getting ready to slug anyone who badmouthed her partner. “Arun invaded your frozen heart, and that’s why you talk now of anger and pain.”
Indiya shrugged. “You are correct. When the watch officer patched through the video you’ve just watched, Arun and I were in my quarters, and… in a state of some intimacy.” She cast her eyes down. “I occasionally wonder how I would have turned out if Arun had tried a little harder, if this video image had been sent a few weeks later. We still talk on many issues – with Loobie dead, he is my most intimate confidant – but since that day I have neither entertained General McEwan nor anyone else in my quarters.”
By her personal clock, these events took place twenty-three years ago, but none of the others seemed surprised that she had been so alone for so long. She gave a long and trembling sigh, and then cut to the chase. “I think this is evasion and gossip on your part. Both of you. You have both talked of a logical explanation for why we should see people with eyes that resemble McEwan and Tremayne, but there is another explanation and you are both too cowardly to say it.”
“I think,” said Xin carefully, “that I am very glad I am afraid, because the other explanation you allude to would crush everything I know, shatter everything I fought for. Laugh at my dreams.”
“Laugh at your dreams,” Tremayne sneered. “You’re such a drama princess, Lieutenant-General. Not burdened with dreams of my own, I’ll speak plainly. The Bonaventure is a mystery ship. We all know that. Those people we see are not just my genetic descendants. I think they are the same children that Pedro produced as his frakking backup plan in case Arun I were killed. The same ones that I assume are still somewhere safe, hidden in the fleet, still just embryos. What you see there are my children. My children from the future. And that’s how your mystery ship did everything within the hundred nanoseconds. I bet you can pull a heap of fancy stunts like that if you can manipulate time.”
Tremayne looked at the three other people in the compartment. “Isn’t anyone going to tell me that I’m talking drent?” She gave a hollow laugh when no one denied the truth of the words.
“And me?” asked Del-Marie. “The Hardit said I was there twice. Was there a version of me from the future?”
No one could answer Del-Marie’s question.
“The Hardit will say anything to divide us,” said Indiya. “Remember her aim in all of this is to make us weak. And we know who’s been behind us all along. The Human Legion, the Civil War, my purple hair and your eyes of the same color, Admiral, the same shade in the eyes of those people in the images too.”
“Night Hummers,” said Xin.
Her words were spoken with exaggerated calmness, but Indiya saw Xin’s fists bunch until her knuckles turned white.
— Chapter 27 —
Finfth wrapped his arms around Indiya and rested his palms over the back of her hands, ensuring full skin contact to allow maximum bandwidth for communication between the nano-constructs built into each of their augmented bodies. She trusted Finfth completely, but it still took a strong effort of will to allow herself to relax in his embrace. She eased against him as her chief staff officer, Arbentyne-Daex, wrapped the two augments in the sleeping pouch and secured its outer edge to the overhead in Indiya’s quarters.
It was an unusual way to conduct a command conference, but Indiya was not the same as Arun, and she was in charge for now. This conference was to be virtual, the senior officers at their posts on their ships, connected to the secure data network via AI assistants. Indiya and Finfth didn’t need artificial assistants, they could build their own.
She smiled at Daex to let the Kurlei know she was mentally calm as her flag staff officer secured herself nearby in a similar, though smaller, zero-g sleeping pouch.
Indiya immediately smiled at her foolishness. Arbentyne-Daex was present because the Kurlei’s natural empathy allowed her to monitor Indiya’s state of mind, and from that the quality of her decision making. You never needed to smile at a Kurlei for them to know whether you were calm.
Finfth was here to fulfil the same function, although he had other reasons to contribute as one of the most talented human engineers. She was glad of his physical presence now, the loose embrace of his arms, like a brother’s.
She sighed and thought again of Arun in his recovery pod. For a reason she couldn’t pin down, ever since he’d been injured she had been reminded of that briefest of moments when they first met, and the two of them had danced around each other as possible lovers. The memory of the young Arun’s tender caresses upon her skin was stored in full fidelity, and now released by Finfth’s fraternal touch.
To see a fellow human being was rare these days, she thought sourly, let alone to touch one. She was more used to the company of the amphibious Littoranes, with their four stubby limbs and long tails. Am I deliberately cutting myself off from human contact?
“No,” chorused Finfth and Daex.
Indiya’s mouth made an ‘o’ of shock at this invasion of her private thoughts. Then she laughed – that was precisely what she had ordered them to do.
“You have subsumed yourself into your role,” said Daex. “That is not the same thing. Humans are no longer – forgive me, the human language here is treacherous… We who are not children of Earth look up to you, Admiral, and note the company you keep. We see that the Human Legion fights for the freedom of all the under-trodden peoples of the empire, whatever their homeworld. We are all human.”
Pride swelled Indiya’s heart. It was a truly strange thing. The word ‘human’ was simple enough to be portable across many languages and the vocal organs of many species. As a result, ‘human’ had long ago become a loan word used across countless star systems to mean the lowest dregs of society, despised and dispossessed, just one step away from vermin. The Human Legion had taken that symbol of wretchedness and transformed it into a word of power. Alien soldiers reporting to alien officers had fought and died in this war of liberation, proudly shouting the word ‘human’ as they advanced into battle. Arun speculated that the Hummers had seeded the spread of the word, but whatever the source of its spread, Indiya was proud of the way it bound them together.
“Your CSO is partially correct when she notes the importance of not being seen to favor the children of Earth,” said Finfth. “But for my part, I miss my sister. I rarely see you.”
She rubbed her shoulders against his back, indulging in the warmth of Finfth’s sentiment. They weren’t siblings, of course, but of the group of augments created on the Beowulf, Loobie and Fant were dead, Furn imprisoned on Khallini-4, and Tizer had been left behind on Tranquility, his status and that of the Sleeping Legion unknown.
Would she see Tizer again? Perhaps she should encourage the Reserve Captain to assist in the creation of a new generation of augments?
Indiya realized with a start that she had never considered such things because she never thought of her future. The drive to establish an autonomous zone for all humans had consumed her life to such an extent she could not see beyond that goal. Perhaps after they captured Athena, surely the war would be over, their freedoms won, and she could re-establish contact with the concept of a personal future? Of being Indiya, the purple-haired woman, not Admiral Indiya, the Navy commander.
She imagined her mother rolling her eyes. About time you thought of yourself for a change, my girl. Ever since that Marine caught your eye… Arun McEwan has much to answer for.
But Momma’s shade was wrong. This was entirely the wrong time to think about the future. The lives of countless billions depended on winning this next battle.
And, without Arun, the responsibility for doing so was a crushing weight on her shoulders.
“Help me,” she ordered Arben
tyne-Daex.
Indiya closed her eyes and allowed the warmth of the Kurlei’s empathy to embrace her mind. Indiya and Finfth could both give her hormonal commands of mellowness, and there were many drugs designed to eliminate worries and concentrate minds. Indiya’s mind, was not strictly human, and the choices she was about to make were vital. She could not afford for her judgement to be clouded by chemicals. Only the Kurlei would do.
Unlike the Hummers, Daex’s mental touch was so gentle it almost tickled. The Kurlei nudged her commander gently away from distracting thoughts and drew Indiya’s mind close around the problem at hand.
The whole process took about a minute. A last, distracting thought flickered before her – why don’t I use Daex like this more often? But then, that too disappeared and Indiya was ready.
She opened the data feeds to the senior officers and specialists on ships throughout the Legion fleets, and began.
“I am initiating the invasion decision-making session. Let me first make clear the rules for your involvement. I need hardly state that we all have deep misgivings about an attack on Athena in the current circumstances. Your collective role is to challenge what I suggest and to propose alternate courses of action. I shall say now that I am inclined to proceed with the invasion, and that means we must assume my assessment of all arguments for and against is already distorted by cognitive bias – I will give greater weight to arguments that support my preferred option. You are to combat that bias. However, make no mistake, I am not General McEwan and this is not the kind of collective decision making the general prefers. You are not here to argue your case – that time has already passed. You are here to help me make the right decision, but that decision is entirely mine to take alone. First, Major Uhll, give us your best assessment on whether we will be successful in turning off the barrier protecting Athena.”
The Tallerman engineer drew his head in defensively, but then told the assembly of senior officers precisely what he thought without sugaring the pill. Bringing the Tallermans into the Legion alliance had added a backbone to decision making that Indiya couldn’t now imagine being without. The hardy Tallermans had such a fatalistic view of life, having evolved in such a grindingly difficult environment, that they seemed unaffected by the cognitive biases that concerned most other races in the Legion. It made them good commanders, and was why Indiya had placed Major Uhll in charge of the team that would turn off the barrier. Finfth, who was on the same team as a special adviser, said that the Tallerman inspired confidence through his scratch team of engineers and xeno-biologists.